Sixth grade students from Murfreesboro City, Rutherford County, and private schools are busy studying in preparation for Read To Succeed’s sixth annual Read To Bee Spelling Championship to be held at 9 a.m. Saturday, April 4 in the Patterson Park Community Center Theater.
Students participating in the Bee must first win on the classroom level. All the classroom winners in a school then compete to select a winner and alternate who attend the Bee.
If the winner cannot participate in the Bee, the school’s alternate will spell. In 2004, Lauren Oldfield, the alternate from Blackman Middle participated in Read To Bee when the Blackman School winner was unable to participate. She took second place in the Read To Bee and left with a $500 savings bond in her pocket.
2009 School winner from Eagleville, has said, “My family is so happy that I was a (school) champion; my mom was the happiest. When I won the spelling bee at my school I was in SHOCK. One of my friends said, ‘Breathe, just breathe’.” This student will be one of 26 participants at this year’s Read To Bee.
When asked about winning the 2005 Read To Bee Sidhartha Sinha, said, “The experience wholly transformed me. The new knowledge I had gained in that short of time was incomparable to anything else.”
School winners are given copies of Merriam-Webster’s Spell It! Tricks and Tips for Spelling Bee Success. Parents also play an important role in helping their children to prepare for the Bee.
Sinha said his mother quizzed him on every word in the study book, and his father brought binders and binders full of words that he was quizzed on.
“Parental involvement is the key to every child’s literacy development. Mr. Sinha is lucky to have parents willing to work with him; it has made the difference in his life,” Read To Succeed Program Manager Sandra Pineault said.
Read To Bee will be taped by the Murfreesboro City Cable Channel and broadcast in April and May on Channel 3. Check the programming schedule on the Murfreesboro City website under City Departments/Cable Television.
Local author, lecturer, and writing coach Rabbi Rami Shapiro will serve as pronouncer for this year’s Bee.
Taking up the gavel as Bee judges are Murfreesboro City School Board Member and Senior Vice President of Pinnacle Banking David Hopper, Diane Stockard, director of the Smyrna/La Vergne Boys & Girls Club, and Coordinator for English as a Second Language for Rutherford County Diane Mackey. Middle School Coordinator for Rutherford County and Read To Succeed Council Member Shelia Bratton wil serve as Bee coordinator.
Read To Bee was created in 2004 by charter members of Read To Succeed.
“It’s so important for the students to realize their efforts will be rewarded in the real world,” Pineault said. “The many businesses that support Read To Succeed and its programming understand that today’s students are tomorrows workers. Students with high literacy levels and a strong work ethic will become the employees that Rutherford County needs. ”
Read To Succeed promotes literacy from parental reading to newborns to providing tutors for adult learners.
Read To Bee is one way that Read To Succeed promotes literacy through cooperation with city, county, and private schools.
As Read To Bee winner Sidhartha Sinha says, “Literacy is knowledge, and knowledge is power. Without knowledge, everything is useless. In this rapidly growing world, knowledge is essential to success in any field.”
Read To Succeed, the community literacy collaborative in Rutherford County, will promote reading, with an emphasis on family literacy. This nonprofit initiative supports literacy programs and fosters awareness of the importance of reading. For more information, visit www.readtosucceed.org |
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